From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [469]
“No it wont,” he whispered. “It wont this time.” And went on loving her.
And then finally, she whispered lovingly, “Let me turn the covers back. I dont care. Really I dont. I know you want to do it. We dont want to mess up their bed after they’ve been so nice, though.”
Up to that point, it had all happened before, many times.
But this time, when she offered, Warden refused. Maybe it was partly out of his humility and gratitude that, even knowing, she still had come down anyway. Maybe it was partly something else.
“I wont care, really,” she offered lovingly givingly. “Its different now. It wont spoil it now. And I know you want to.”
But he refused again. Apparently there were unsuspected depths of something in him that even he did not know. But the thought of doing it to her now actually offended him. Apparently he had not exorcised his Catholic moralism after all. Apparently he had not outgrown his virgin mother any more than any of the rest of the great race of American males.
“If you want to, its all right,” Karen smiled. “I wont care. I want you to know I wont care.”
“I’d rather not,” he said, at least fifty percent truthfully.
“Oh, my darling!” Karen cried, throwing her arms around him. “My darling darling!”
It was a very strange thing.
She relaxed back into the chair, her hands on his hair, his face on her breasts, and they went on making potent love to each other, touching each other, talking without hearing, saying the stupid inane words that were not even meant to be a conveying of thought but only a self-expression of emotion expressed to the self only, as a man who has been punched in the belly will grunt “Oh!” or a man hit with a bullet will cry out, “I’m hit!”
It was a love-making of a caliber and muzzle velocity he had never experienced, and a greater intensity and a higher peak than he had believed in. It was tremendously satisfying to something.
At the moment of the highest intensity, as if feeling it instinctively, he got up and left her and lay on the bed and lit a cigaret, while Karen smiled at him from the chair brimmingly. He felt exactly as if he had had an orgasm physically, except that he hadnt. He was not frustrated, nor thwarted, nor did he feel unaccomplished. He lay on the bed smoking the cigaret, relaxed, peaceful, and ready to sleep; and feeling obscurely proud of himself and triumphant, under his hunger, as if he had conquered something.
It was the most wonderful feeling he had ever had in his life, but he decided it was a little too intense for every day use.
“Now you know what love can be like,” Karen said from the chair.
They lay in the bed together the rest of the night, without sleeping, and without sexual intercourse, and they talked over many things. They talked over almost everything. He told her the last chapter and finis of Prewitt’s story. She cried over it. They were very happy. They talked until the alarm on her little clock that she always carried in her bag for him went off at four-thirty, and then Warden got up and dressed.
“It isnt good-by, darling,” Karen said from the bed.
“Of course it isnt,” Warden said.
“Two people who have meant as much to each other as we have dont fade out of each other’s lives,” Karen said.
“Of course they dont,” Warden said. “They cant.”
“It looks dark now,” Karen said. “The time will be longer, and the plans are changed. And there will be the war. But we’ll see each other again.”
“Sure we will,” Warden said. “I know that we will.”
“We’ll meet again someday. People who have been as close to each other as we have, always meet again,” Karen said. “You have my home address in Maryland?”
“Yes,” Warden said. “I’ve got it. And you can always write me to the Company. Wherever we go, the APO will stay the same.”
“Of course I can write you,” Karen said.
“You can get home all right,” he asked.
“I’m all right,” she said. “Perfectly all right.”
“You wont have any trouble with Holmes,” he asked.
“He wont bother me.”
“I love you,” Warden said.
“I love you,” she said.
“Well,” Warden said. “I’ll see you,” he said.
“Kiss me o